Where Are the Lawsuits Over the Chainsawing of NIH and NCI?

There’s one point that has come up, sometimes explicitly but more often by what isn’t said, in my many conversations with civil servants at HHS and especially at the core medical research agencies within it. At the simplest level, they’re not lawyers. But the issue requires a little more explanation because obviously most people aren’t lawyers in the other departments and agencies either. Outside the Department of Justice, none of these agencies are legal agencies or departments per se. But in most of the rest of the government, lawyers are ubiquitous and much of the work culture is structured around the work and ideas of lawyers. This is probably intuitively clear for most of you who’ve either reported on the federal government or worked within it. But it’s worth stating explicitly and thinking about the impact this has had in recent weeks.

Again and again in conversations with people at NIH, NCI and other public health or research agencies within the government the same basic point comes up: the people immediately affected by the events of the last four weeks have very little idea what the relevant law is, the legal standing of the actions being taken or who to talk to about any of it. I’ve had a few sources ask if I could organize some lawyers to create what amounted to a FAQ about the relevant law. I haven’t had a chance. But someone should.

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GOP Sens Worried About Trump’s NIH Cuts Turn To Limp Public Negotiations With RFK, Trump

Earlier this month, the Trump administration took a sledgehammer to a key way in which the National Institutes of Health funds major research institutions across the country. As the country has scrambled to understand the implications of the directive, many Republicans are hearing from their constituents — and walking a tight rope: They’re publicly expressing concerns about the damage the cuts will do to crucial medical research in their home states while also praising Donald Trump and RFK Jr., the newly confirmed Health and Human Services secretary, for halting funding in the first place. 

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Trump Official Destroying USAID Secretly Met With Christian Nationalists Abroad In Defiance Of US Policy

This article first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Before Peter Marocco was selected to dismantle America’s entire foreign aid sector on behalf of President Donald Trump, he was an official with the State Department on a diplomatic mission.

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Understanding the Taxonomy of DOGE

Here’s an important resource being maintained by ProPublica. It’s a list of everyone associated with the DOGE operation. (Nice to see two TPM alums on the list of those compiling and maintaining it.) The page says it hasn’t been updated since February 11th, which by today’s standards is semi-ancient history. But presumably they’ll be doing more updates soon.

I want to add a few additional points that provide context.

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Job Cuts Hit Medicare

Critical development overnight both in terms of immediate impact on tens of millions of Americans and the political dynamics of the moment. Overnight, big rounds of firings got underway at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the folks who run the Medicare system — as well as the FDA. Those who evaluate medical devices and administer Obamacare were also hit. More here.

Trump Can’t Be Allowed to Control Almost Half Of New York State

I said last week that after the events of last Monday it was important for New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) to remove Mayor Eric Adams (D) from office. The voters of New York City are entitled to a mayor who is not being held hostage by a President most New Yorkers don’t support. The argument is straightforward; I make it here. But this is part of broader necessity. As long as the sitting President persists in governing in defiance of the federal Constitution, the power and autonomy of state governments become critical bases of legitimate political power. Blue states need to be expanding ways to work together to protect the liberties of their residents against unlawful uses of power, harassment and abuse. This is a difficult challenge since the supremacy of federal law is a cornerstone of the constitutional system. But state governments are not subordinate to the federal government in the way that regional and local governments are in unitary states. There are many areas where the federal government has no say in state action. And at the most basic level, state officials do not answer to federal officials. The tether binding one to another is at best through the courts. With Democrats for the moment excluded from power in Washington, Democratic power at the state level becomes a critical hold on power and executive authority. It’s in that context that removing Adams from power becomes even more critical. The federal government is now run by a lawless President enabling criminal conduct across the executive branch. He can’t be allowed to extend that power within New York state — or in any other state for that matter. New York City, after all, has a larger population than all but about a dozen states.

Mike Johnson Is Caught Between His Hardliners And A Hard Place

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

On Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had won over the right flank of his conference by promising at least $2 trillion in spending cuts to pay for the Trump tax cuts. 

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Two Jan. 6 Boosters Are Now Trump Appointees Strangling USAID From The Inside

For some of the thousands of USAID employees left in limbo after the Trump administration nuked their agency, there are few ways to get back to work.

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